Larkspur Rhodes Scholar looks to China

It all began at the Larkspur Public Library, where 21-year-old Catherine Laporte-Oshiro read some of her first books.

Laporte-Oshiro credits her hometown library, and more importantly the parents who brought her there, with kick-starting her academic career and leading her to her latest accomplishment — selection as one of 32 Rhodes Scholars from the United States.

"I got asked once, 'Is there one defining moment that led you down that path?' and there really isn't," she said. "It's part of a lifetime of having people that supported me and gave me opportunities and helped me grow."

A San Francisco University High School graduate and senior at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., Laporte-Oshiro was selected from among 1,700 students who sought their college's endorsement for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. About half the students received endorsements, and regional selection committees chose the winners.

"I was pretty surprised," Laporte-Oshiro said of learning she won a scholarship. "All of the other scholars and finalists are really incredible people."

Laporte-Oshiro will graduate from Yale in the spring with a degree in ethics, politics and economics and a focus on Chinese state capitalism.

She has studied Mandarin since high school and she has interned and studied in Hong Kong and Beijing, China.

The Rhodes Scholarship will cover at least two years of graduate study at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, beginning in fall 2013.

Laporte-Oshiro said she will continue to focus her studies on China, a step toward her career goal of working on international relations with that country.

"It's always a really interesting time in China," she said. "Right now, there's a leadership transition, but if you look at the last 100 years, really there have been a lot of changes. China is place where a lot things change in a short amount of time and there is a lot of opportunity for individuals to create positive change."

Launched in 1904, the Rhodes Scholarship program was created by the will of Cecil Rhodes, a British philanthropist and African colonist.

"Applicants are chosen on the basis of the criteria set down in the will of Cecil Rhodes," Elliot Gerson, American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust, said in a statement. "These criteria are high academic achievement, integrity of character, a spirit of unselfishness, respect for others, potential for leadership, and physical vigor."

Well-known scholars have included former President Bill Clinton, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, several current and former governors and cable news host Rachel Maddow.

Laporte-Oshiro attended Marin Country Day School in Corte Madera and played volleyball for the Marin Juniors and Absolute Volleyball club teams, in addition to her high school team.

At Yale she is team captain of the Fed Challenge team, which competes in economic analysis. She is former president of the undergraduate economics association and an active member of the Yale Political Union, a debate society. She also is a resident counselor for freshmen.

When she finishes at Oxford, she hopes to play a role in what she sees as one of the key challenges of her generation — helping to shape China's role in the world.

"There is a lot of pressure right now — economic pressure, political pressure, social pressure," she said. "It's going to be really tough for them (China) to navigate it — for the United States to navigate that as well and the rest of the world — but I do think there are a lot of bright people working on these kinds of issues all around the world, in China and outside of China.

"Negotiating those things is nothing less than trying to determine what the next international order is going to be," she said.